Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck stopped in for a visit with Mut & Merloni on Tuesday to discuss how close Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce were to being traded last week, the prospect of being a better team without Rajon Rondo, and more Celtics topics.

Pierce and Garnett were the subjects of many trade rumors leading up to last week’s trade deadline.

“For the last two or three days before the deadline, their names came up more than anybody else,” Grousbeck said. “They were the topic of conversations of calls coming into us because people thought maybe we weren’t going to keep it together this spring.

“The assumption going into any February, as long as I’m around, is going to be: Make the team better for this year. Don’t blow it up in the middle of February if you’re in a playoff position.”

The Celtics are 30-27 and hold the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference. They are 2½ games behind the Bulls for the sixth seed, and 2½ games ahead of the eighth-seeded Bucks.

“If we were 5-50 or whatever, we’d be pretty likely to do almost anything to make that better,” Grousbeck said. “But I like the way this team has been playing. We need some help, though. We need some more guys. … The icing on the cake was losing [Leandro] Barbosa. [He] was really playing well, lot of energy, defensive intensity, some length, some offense.”

After this season, Pierce will have one more year left on his contract with the Celtics. Grousbeck talked about the likelihood of the captain retiring in a Celtics uniform.

“We’re going to retire his number, whatever happens,” Grousbeck said. “Paul is an all-time great. Just watching him last night, he looked like he was 25 again. … People can’t say ‘Big deal, they’re playing for two hours. What’s the big hardship?’ It’s a grind and that was a grind last night in overtime and everything else. They could have folded up the tent and they didn’t.”

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, reported Wednesday that the Nets had offered Kris Humphries, MarShon Brooks and a draft pick to the Celtics for Pierce.

“I love MarShon Brooks,” Marshall said. “I think that he is one of my favorite, if not my favorite first couple of years players. He’s a terrific scorer. … It comes to an end at some point and then you have to start rebuilding. Paul Pierce is theBob Cousy, the John Havlicek of the Celtics today. He really is. You have a guy on your team that has played for you his entire career and has played through all the ups and downs. … If you can get a guy like MarShon Brooks, if you can get a guy like Kris Humphries; you know what, personality off the court aside, it helps you on the court.”

Another hot topic for the trade deadline has continued to be the possible availability of Hawks forward Josh Smith.

“I don’t know if Doc Rivers wants to coach a guy like Josh Smith,” Marshall said. “The guy has no position, I’m talking basketball alone. He has no position. He has no shot selection. Sometimes you’ll see him shooting 3’s. He’ll shoot air balls, then he’ll make two or three. Then you’ll see him shooting mid-range jumpshots, then you’ll see him in the post. He really has no position. … He hasn’t proven himself as a winner, one. He doesn’t really understand the concepts of what they’re running. Maybe that’s the coach and the system that you can play in Atlanta, but I’m not so sure that he’s a Doc Rivers-type guy.”

While Smith’s athleticism is obvious, his personality and attitude has come into question in the past.

“Everyone across the board [says] ‘We don’t know, we stay away from Josh Smith,’ ” Marshall said. “Because his personality, he will blow up at you. He will walk out of practices. These are reports from guys who are on that team; coaches and players. Obviously you have to have a guy come and experience it for yourself, but guys in the NBA talk. It’s a small fraternity and that bad news can derail, it will stay with you for a long time, and I think a lot of people know that about Josh Smith, apart from his talent on the floor.

Yahoo! Sports NBA writer Marc Spears checked in with Dennis & Callahan on Tuesday to discuss the rumors of a trade between the Celtics and Clippers, and the Celtics’ interest in Hawks forward Josh Smith.

With Thursday’s trade deadline fast approaching, rumors continue to swirl that the Celtics and Clippers are discussing a deal that would send Kevin Garnett to Los Angeles for DeAndre Jordan and Eric Bledsoe.

“I think the Clippers want it done more so than Boston,” Spears said. “This is the first time we’ve ever talked about the Clippers having a championship shot. I think they realize that they’re missing just a little something to get them over that hump with Oklahoma City and with San Antonio. And who better to get them there than Kevin Garnett?

“I was there [at All-Star Weekend] when Kevin said no, no circumstance, nothing. But I really believe if Danny [Ainge] came up to him and said, ‘Hey, this is something we would like to do; this is better for our future,’ knowing Garnett’s pride, I think he would probably change his mind. I know he doesn’t want to be somewhere where they’d rather have something else.”

Jordan is having a solid fourth season (9.0 ppg, 7.3 rpg) and Bledsoe, while not a starter, also is having a good year (9.6 ppg, 3.3 apg).

“DeAndre Jordan I think is a better center than [he’s] getting credit for,” Spears said. “He’s really really retooled his offensive game, gotten better in the post, but the problem is everybody on the Clippers likes to shoot. … I think he could be one of the NBA’s elite centers, he’s just not given a chance.

“Bledsoe is very very talented, very athletic. I don’t know that acquiring him certainly means that [Rajon] Rondo is gone. He and Chris Paul play a lot together, so I can’t see why him and Rondo can’t play a lot together. But I know Bledsoe is at a point in his career, too, where he wants to start, so that’s where I think it gets kind of tricky.”

It appears that the trade could benefit both clubs. It would give the Celtics a quality starting center and a young point guard, while the Clippers would get a player with championship experience who still is playing good basketball at the age of 36. KG has stated numerous times, though, that he wants to finish his career with the Celtics.

‘I know the Clippers want to do this, I know they want to,” Spears said, adding: “This is an opportunity for the Clippers to finally get something. The window with Garnett obviously is about two years, but they’ve never been here and I think their owner might be in the mentality now of just ‘Let’s go for it. I’ve saved money for all these years with these bad teams, I might as well do something for once.’ So I think they’re open to doing something big.’

By Victor Barbosa | Comments Off on Leandro Barbosa on M&M: Trade demand ‘definitely a miscommunication’

Celtics guard Leandro Barbosachatted with Mut & Merloni on Thursday to discuss the team’s reaction to hearing the Rajon Rondo news, the rumors that he wanted to be traded and more Celtics topics.

Barbosa scored seven points in the Celtics’ 99-81 victory over the Kings on Wednesday night, the team’s second victory in a row since losing Rondo for the season.

It was announced on Sunday, during the nationally televised game vs. the Heat, that Rondo would be out for the rest of the season. The players did not find out the news until after the win, though.

“It was pretty sad, very sad and shock,” Barbosa said. “We saw him in the shootaround before the game, a couple of minutes before the game. He was walking and just talking about some weird pain that he had in his leg. We knew that he probably would be out that game, but not for the whole year. … We’re hoping he’s feeling OK and he gets back as soon as possible to the court.”

On Jan. 17, a report from his home country of Brazil indicated that Barbosa had asked to be traded numerous times from the Celtics, but the nine-year veteran denied it.

“It was definitely a miscommunication,” Barbosa said. “I never said that. I never said that I wanted to get traded, and if I wanted to get traded I wouldn’t be talking to the media first. I would have talked to Danny Ainge, and then after, my teammates, and then the media.

“I knew my role was going to be like that and that’s why I came to the Celtics. It was a dream come true for me and I’m happy to be here.”

With the injury to Rondo, players like Barbosa figure to receive more playing time, but he said he is simply happy to be a part of such a historic team.

“Like I said, [it’s a] dream come true,” Barbosa said. “It was a team that I was always watching when I was a little kid and there was a lot of good players that [have] been around this team and I just thought that it could be a good experience for me, even though I didn’t have many minutes or opportunity to play. But it was a great situation for me to learn from the older guys and the experienced guys. So, it was great.”